


Simple Facts

by slightlyworriedhuman



Series: Synesthete Jeremy [1]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: M/M, Michael is curious, relationshio will evolve in the series, synesthete Jeremy Heere, synethesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-21 03:24:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11935308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlyworriedhuman/pseuds/slightlyworriedhuman
Summary: Jeremy is synesthetic. Michael wonders what it's like.small thing just about Jeremy explaining a tiny portion of his synesthesia to Michael. I got bored and wanted to talk about it but had nobody so I wrote this instead.





	Simple Facts

There are simple facts in life. Water is wet. The sun is bright. Pine trees are green. The school bench he and Michael sat upon was hard. The song Michael was showing him was bubbling red and yellow. The outdoor air was slightly chilly. 

“What did you think?” Michael asked, pulling the headphones gently from Jeremy’s head and replacing them around his own neck. 

“It was good! I liked it.” He smirked in satisfaction, stowing his phone back in his pocket. Sighing, Jeremy leaned back slightly, slumping against the wall of the school. Students passed back and forth before them, chattering and laughing as they trickled through the school doors. A slight breeze pushed through the air, and he watched as the leaves on the trees planted around the school buildings rippled, the sound of their rustling a rust-and-mustard stipple. 

“Hey, Jeremy?” He turned to his friend, who had a somewhat brooding look on his face. 

“Yeah?” 

“Did that song have a colour for you?” Jeremy raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I mean, you said earlier that something I showed you was dark green… is that stuff a recurring thing, or…?” Shifting, Jeremy pulled his jacket tighter around him. 

“Well, yeah… why do you ask?” Michael shrugged, copying Jeremy’s slump against the wall. 

“I don’t know. It’s interesting. You mention it sometimes, but you never really bring it up in conversation. I’m curious.” His eyes flicked to Jeremy again. “Why is that?” Turning his head back to the stream of entering students, he bit his lip before replying, “I… I’m not really sure? I don’t know. It’s like… I don’t know. Like, it’s a normal thing for me. It happens, and it always has. But it’s just one of those things that doesn’t seem… relevant? Ever? Do you know what I mean?” Michael shrugged again, watching him. 

Jeremy had realized over the course of his years that not everybody was able to see the world as he did. Nobody else seemed to see the colours of music, of sound, of letters and numbers on paper, of other people. He hadn’t even noticed that it was abnormal to experience these things, to be frustrated when seeing a red Wednesday on a calendar when it should be blue, to see dots of pink and silver when wind chimes sounded. It just didn’t seem like a thing that would be unusual. Whenever he had mentioned something, pointing out how the colours in a melody mixed or how a singer’s voice felt like a lead ball on the back of his tongue, he had simply gotten odd looks in response. Nobody had ever told him it was abnormal. He had just… picked it up along the way. 

“What’s it like?” He turned back to Michael in surprise. Michael faced him, calm curiosity showing on his face. 

“Like… seeing sound? Or…?” Another shrug. 

“I don’t know. I guess. What colour was that song? What does it look like? Do other things have colour?” 

“Well… that song was red and yellow. But bubbly red. And the yellow was smoother.” He paused, licking his lips. How was he supposed to explain what a song looked like? “It looked… well, this one was more round, I guess. Around the edges. And the yellow parts looked more circular, but the red was kind of a big fat streak. You know what I mean?” 

“Not one bit, Jere. Keep going.” Jeremy huffed a laugh before turning away from Michael, facing the trees again. 

“Well, what else do you want to know?” 

“What else has colour? What does sound look like?” 

“Aw, jeez, Mike, everything has colour. Like… You hear the leaves? That’s this weird rusty-mustard colour, it’s kinda ugly but kinda pretty at the same time. And your voice is darkish red, but when you get excited it goes kinda lighter red. And sometimes when you get high or sad it sounds green, almost. Like, the green is always there, but it’s on top instead of the red. And sound… shit, man. Everything looks different. Uh…” Sitting straighter, he racked his brain, trying to think of a good example. “Oh! Okay. So you know how a violin sounds, right? Well, that has a lot of different shapes. That song you showed me last week, remember that? Weird French one with the fast violin? Well, that song, the violin looked mostly dark brown and golden. But it had shapes for each… note? Melody? Whatever. Like, some parts of it were like spheres, and some parts were more like diamonds, or waves, stuff like that.” Jeremy held his hands in front of him, shaping the air as he tried to explain. “And when it got really fast, some of the shapes got kinda frizzy, almost. And when there was more than one playing everything got crowded. All of it together was just beautiful, man. It’s gorgeous.” 

“That… that is so cool, Jere.” Looking back at Michael, he saw wonder on his friend’s face. Feeling himself redden slightly, Jeremy dropped his hands, pulling his jacket closer around him again. “So just… everything has colour? And shape?” 

“Well, not everything has shape, some things have, like, feelings. Like I can feel a singer's voice on my tongue, or an instrument behind my lungs. But for the shapes, sometimes it’s just like… abstract. It’s there but I can’t define where it starts and ends. You get what I mean?” 

“Not at all. That’s so neat, man.” Michael grinned at him. “Is it only sound that has colour?” 

“No, but I’m not exactly sure what else is normal and what… isn’t.” 

“Have you ever looked it up?” he asked, cocking his head. Jeremy opened his mouth, then paused. 

“...Oh.” 

“You never looked it up?” 

“Uh…” Michael snorted. 

“Dude, come on. We’ll look it up today when we get to my place, alright?” Pushing himself off of the wall, Michael slung an arm around Jeremy’s shoulder, pulling him close. “You’ll have to tell me more about this, huh? Open my blind eyes.” He laughed, and Jeremy felt a smile grow across his face at the hollow light red that washed across him. 

“Sounds good, Mikey.” 

There are simple facts in life. Water is wet. The sun is bright. Pine trees are green. Somehow, the red of his best friend’s laugh was more beautiful a colour than any violin.

**Author's Note:**

> be proud, explaining this stuff is quite a challenge for me.  
> tumblr is @richieandthevoices, hmu over there!  
> my other fic that I'm really proud of is here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11377965 please give it a look!


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